Take a look back at the election results from the second midterm elections of presidents, which is what 2014 will be. From the end of World War II up until the 1986 election, the president’s party lost an average of 48 seats in the House and seven seats in the Senate, according to the indispensable Congressional analyst Norm Ornstein. That “six year itch” trend has slowed in more recent second term midterm elections — the average losses for the president’s party in the 1986, 1998 and 2006 midterms is 10 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate — but the pattern of losses remain. (In only two six year itch elections since the Civil War — one of which happened in 1998 — has the president’s party not lost seats in Congress.)

Oh, wait — I guess they already remembered, what with the racing for the exits and all.